There was a Swedish guy with his girlfriend staying in our room at the hostel. He was a snorer, but more importantly, he became known as "About". That is what we called him, because no matter where you were in the hostel, he would be sitting there or he would bustle past you with a determined look on his face. At first he was "about" only the hostel, but then we saw him around in the streets of Mendoza, always going somewhere, but seemingly already everywhere. I love shit like that. When he left the hostel we weren't sad, because we knew that he would still be "about"!
Mendoza is a city, big enough without being too big. I felt that this time was good for erasing, or at least easing, the sting of my first impression there. (That was my robbery incident.) It is a town full of green trees, similar in ways to Montevideo in Uruguay. There are a lot of restaurants and bars and cafes. We spent a couple days eating lunch in a cafe, and then drinking coffee and chatting until it was time for dinner. That is the way to go! I love that shit too. The coffee there is good and you can watch funny and interesting things go by you on the street. It was funny, knowing that the criminal element was there, I could totally watch it happening. Most people are oblivious to it going on, and that is why they get nailed. Walking around the nights of the Harvest Festival, you could see the gleam in the young ladrones eyes as they watched a cornucopia of tourists milling by.
The Harvest Festival is quite a thing. Everyone from far and wide comes to watch the crowning of the Harvest Queen and the events leading up to it. There is a lot of music and a lot of parade type stuff happening too. During the parade on friday night there were numerous floats filled with beautiful woman surrounding the Festival Queen candidate, that would roll by, each with their own decorated theme and music. The funny part of this was that instead of throwing candy or something little, they would zing apples, pears, bunches of grapes and the occasional melon!! Actually the melons were less zinged and more heaved. If you weren't watching, those bastards could break your noggin! I went to catch a pear at one point and it rocketed off my hand, onto the head of a short person in front of me...ouch. On friday night we ended up in this great spanish themed bar on the Plaza de España drinking a Pared Del Sur and eating olives and garlic and good bread. It was painted blood red and filled with incredible art. They were selling a lot of sausages in the street which was cool for Gabe since he is from Wisconsin originally. There were cool bands playing all night in the Plaza de Independencia across the moat-ish pool of water from the masses of Mendocinos. It was neat.
One of the best parts of that stay for me was the existence of guitars!! Gabe had a mini nylon string, and the hostel had a normal sized one, so we got to do a lot of playing. I miss it terribly. I miss my guitar and all my recording equipment. I can't wait to get home to it and this playing both made me want it more and tided me over for a while. I wrote three songs while there, all instrumentals. It makes me happy how fast it comes back after a while of being without it. I realize more and more the value of music, the closer you get to it, the more it means. One afternoon I was in the dining room talking to someone, when I heard the sounds of singing in the other room. I went in there and there was an older Chilean lady crooning out beautiful latina melodies and accompanying herself on the guitar. She was great. I couldn't believe she wasn't famous. She had a very dynamic and wavering voice and a great control of the emotion of her words. They were mostly songs of sadness, but they made me smile and I flopped down into a bean bag chair and closed me eyes and took off into the travel that her voice invoked. I love that kind of thing too. Music is the greatest thing ever.
We toured a bunch of vineyards and ate really well at them. There was one table full of charcuterie and cheese that may have been the most impressive one of those I have ever seen. They were free-pouring house syrah and Mateo was in seventh heaven. The last few days were a complete blur. After managing a few short hours of sleep my last night, I made it to the bus, to make my final Chilean/Argentinian Andes crossing at Libertadores. I had a strange thing happen that day too, made stranger by my hangover and lack of sleep. There are many many buses that cross from Santiago to Mendoza and vice versa. It is almost impossible to be on the same bus as someone else twice without planning it that way. I crossed on a random bus from Santiago, and I could not help but notice a very tall and attractive Chilean girl on the same bus. She must have been six foot two, and looked European. Hearing her speak said that she was from Chile, which seemed odd. I slept most of that ride too, and didn't talk to her, but when I got to the bus in Mendoza, days later, ready to cross back to Santiago, there was the same girl, getting onto the same bus as me. Coincidence? Sure. But strange. We ended up talking between naps and were both surprised by the oddness of it. Her parents are Germans and all of her family are tall. Her brother plays in a band that is similar to Iron Maiden. She lives in Puerto Montt and has one of the most rad names I have heard down here: Maria Los Angeles. Too end this entry, I will quote good old Bill Hicks once again: "Is life too fuckin' wierd or what?" Excuse the profanity. You get the jist.
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